York film preview: The Fabelmans, Unwelcome and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Those who spent their Sunday mornings in the early 2000s nursing a hangover while slumped in front of T4 may remember an episode of Dawson’s Creek where our vertiginously foreheaded hero goes to enter his latest masterwork at a college film festival.

When he reveals that his favourite director is Steven Spielberg, the hipster student accepting his submission is not impressed: “Undoubtedly a gifted filmmaker,” she says, “but I mean come on, where’s the edge?”

To which Dawson replies, with the kind of self-assured earnestness that perhaps only a sixteen-year-old trapped in a twentysomething man’s body can muster, “Edge is fleeting. Heart lasts forever.”

Truer words were never spoken – and have apparently proved resonant enough to inspire the formation of a twee pop-punk band in Seattle – so it seems oddly fitting that ex-Creeker Michelle Williams stars in The Fabelmans, Spielberg’s homage to his own formative years.

A nod to the director’s most famous on-screen acolyte, maybe? Perhaps not…Elsewhere, documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed speaks truth to power and it’s all bloodshed, no beauty in folk horror Unwelcome…

New releases

The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg makes his most personal film yet with this fictionalised recreation of the master filmmaker’s formative years, and the loving yet complex family dynamic that shaped him.

Our proxy Spielberg here is young Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), whose life in post-World War II Arizona is changed forever when his parents take him to see The Greatest Show On Earth at the cinema.

Bedazzled by the big screen, Sammy soon sets about making his own mini-movies with his 8mm camera, but while mother Mitzi (Michelle Williams) encourages her son’s new passion, his father Burt (Paul Dano) is more sceptical – and when a shattering family secret is discovered, filmmaking becomes a lifeline for Sammy as never before.

Inevitably a major awards contender, the film has basked in glowing reviews since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last autumn (where it bagged the Audience Award), with the BBC hailing it as ‘one of the year’s most genuinely heartfelt films’.

Unwelcome

From Enys Men to, er, Men, folk horror is all the rage at the moment, with no end of creepy goings-on in seemingly idyllic rural settings – as is the case in this fun-sounding comedy-thriller, which sees a young couple experience severe buyer’s remorse when they relocate to the Irish countryside.

The story sees Maya (Hannah John-Kamen, Ant-Man and the Wasp) and Jamie (Douglas Booth, The Limehouse Golem) relocate from London to a tranquil (it says here) Irish village where Jamie has inherited a house from his recently deceased aunt.

It seems the perfect place for the couple to raise their soon-to-be-born child – if it weren’t for the rowdy-cum-sinister roofing contractors they’ve got in to do up the place, and the small matter of a local legend about the Red Caps, tiny-yet-bloodthirsty folk lurking at the bottom of the garden who require a nightly ‘offering’ to keep them at bay…

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

With the ethical minefield that was the 2022 World Cup fresh in people’s minds, this highly acclaimed portrait of US artist and activist Nan Goldin seems a particularly timely release.

Celebrated for her groundbreaking photography – in particular her intimate portraits of LGBT subcultures – Goldin has become equally lauded in recent years for her campaign against the wealthy Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, a key driver in America’s opioid crisis.

Directed by Laura Poitras (who made Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour), the film looks back at Goldin’s powerful body of work and her attempts to hold the Sacklers to account – famously including ‘die-ins’ at some of the many art galleries to which the family have made hefty donations in an attempt to whitewash their image.

Other screenings

January tends to be the one time of the year when prestige dramas outnumber bombastic blockbusters at the cinema – but there’s a valiant rearguard action being led by Gerard Butler (who else?) this week in the form of Plane.

As that Wickes-approved title indicates, it’s an old school action movie set on, well, a plane, where Butler’s ace pilot must team up with an ‘accused murderer’ when his passengers are taken hostage – it’s boarding now at Cineworld, Everyman and Vue and is described by the NME as ‘a fun Friday night mix of Con Air, Air Force One and Butler’s best bits’.

Much like Del and Rodney finding they’ve been sitting on a priceless antique stopwatch for twenty years, streaming wheeler-dealers Netflix are currently high-fiving themselves after discovering a surprise awards frontrunner languishing in their content mill in the form of All Quiet on the Western Front – the highly acclaimed German war drama has received multiple Oscar and BAFTA nods, and you can see what the fuss is about courtesy of Everyman, where it shows on Tues 31st.

As ever, there’s a smattering of classics back on the big screen this week too – first up, Everyman’s Throwback season takes us back to the dystopian future with a screening of Blade Runner: The Final Cut on Sun 29th.

If that new year’s get fit resolution is foundering in week four, you can take montage-tastic inspiration from the original Rocky, showing at Vue on Sat 28th, Mon 30th and Weds 1st – while the laughs come courtesy of Harry and Lloyd as Vue’s comedy season continues with Dumb and Dumber on Fri 27th, Tues 31st and Thurs 2nd.

Mojo readers will have to content themselves with digging out their DVD of The Last Waltz this week as the concert docs on offer are skewing decidedly young: Billie Eilish: Live at the O2 screens at Cineworld on Fri 27th, while BTS: Yet To Come (Cineworld, Vue, Weds 1st) gives fans a chance to see the all-conquering boyband’s show-stopping performance in Busan from last year.

Vue’s Shrek odyssey reaches its conclusion this weekend with Shrek Forever After (Sat 28th/Sun 29th) – just in time for Puss in Boots to swashbuckle his way back on to the big screen next week.

And finally, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile is City Screen’s budget family-friendly screening this week (Sat 28th, tickets £3.30), while recent Disney adventure caper Strange World – the film which reunited The Day After Tomorrow’s father-son team of Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal –  is on offer at Cineworld (£2.50) and Vue (£2.49) on both Sat 28th and Sun 29th. There’s also an Autism-Friendly screening at Vue on Sun 29th (tickets £2.49).

On which note, I’ll leave you with my favourite thing about Roland Emmerich’s extreme weather disaster-fest – two days after you see it, you can say to your friends, “I saw The Day After Tomorrow the day before yesterday…”